In a mobile communication system, a paging group information message (PGID_Info message) corresponding to a broadcast message can be used for providing paging-related information of the base station. The paging group information message can be transmitted through all carriers (or frequency assignment (FA)s or component carriers) supported by the base station.
The paging group information message can include fields shown in Table 1.
TABLE 1NameValueNum_PGIDsNumber of paging groups in the base stationPGIDIdentifier of paging groups 0-216mTime domain hash parameters 1-4 used to determinethe frame number of a superframe for pagingmessage transmission of an idle mode AMS.
In Table 1, the Num_PGIDs field represents the number of paging groups supported by the base station. The PGID field represents a paging group identifier. The paging group information message can include a plurality of paging group identifiers. The number of paging group identifiers can corresponds to the number represented by the Num_PGIDs field. The m field represents a time domain hash parameter which the mobile station uses to determine a frame number for transmitting a paging message among multiple frames within a superframe including a paging reception interval.
On the other hand, the base station can provide information necessary for multicarrier support to the mobile station through a global carrier configuration message such as an AAlI_Global_Config message and a multicarrier advertisement message such as an AAI_MC_ADV message.
The global carrier configuration message is a message for providing carrier information for all available carriers in a network that the base station belongs to. The global carrier configuration message provides information on the entire number of carrier groups in the network composed of adjacent carriers continuously located in a frequency region and information on individual carriers composing each carrier group. The carrier group information includes bandwidth of component carriers of each carrier group, and start frequency information. The individual carrier information includes a physical carrier index and information on the duplexing mode. The physical carrier index is for identifying all carriers supported by the network to which the corresponding base station belongs. After the mobile station performs initial access to a system through the base station, the base station transmits the global carrier configuration message to the mobile station. All base stations that belong to the same network provide the global carrier configuration messages with the same content. The multicarrier advertisement message provides information on multiple carriers that the base station can support. By using the physical carrier index provided through the global carrier configuration message, the multicarrier advertisement message provides information on a secondary advanced preamble index (SA-preamble index), a MAC protocol version, a super frame header (SFH), etc. for each of carriers which the base station can support.
In a mobile wireless access system supporting multicarriers, mobile stations in an idle mode state within the base station can receive a paging message through different carriers. Also, the base station can only use some carriers among multiple carriers supported by the base station to transmit the paging message.
It is necessary to provide information for determining a carrier for transmitting the paging message of the corresponding mobile station and information on carriers used for transmitting paging messages within the base station so that the mobile station can receive the paging message in the idle mode. A carrier which is used for transmitting the paging message of the corresponding mobile station can be determined by using a specific equation.
However, the conventional paging group information message, global carrier configuration message, and multicarrier advertisement message do not provide paging-related information on each of carriers necessary for transmitting the paging message through multiple carriers.